Barnes & Thornburg is valued for deep healthcare industry know-how and comprehensive advice to healthcare providers, guiding them through the maze of complicated laws and government regulations while seeking to minimize risk, safeguard their position, and meet their business objectives.
Many of our lawyers have hands-on experience working in healthcare, allowing us to understand the unique concerns and challenges that face the industry, especially during situations like the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team has been working with our healthcare clients on addressing their operational, regulatory, legal and government concerns brought on by the outbreak, while evaluating business continuity issues during these uncertain times.
With regards to COVID-19, we are:
- Counseling hospitals and their ethics committees regarding plans for rationing of resources, if necessary, based on insufficient supplies, equipment, capacity and personnel to provide healthcare services to their patients
- Advising hospitals and physician groups on employer-related issues relating to the pandemic, including drafting correspondence to their employees, medical staff members, governing boards and the public
- Consulting on fraud and abuse issues in the time of crisis, including fair market value, commercial reasonableness of physician and referral source financial arrangements
- Advising hospitals on incentive compensation models for physicians and providers working with pandemic patients
- Advising providers of ancillary services (e.g., hospice, podiatry) who have denied access to residents of long-term care facilities due to COVID-19 concerns
- Helping in-home therapy provider and critical access hospitals implement telemedicine platforms for remote patient therapy and monitoring
- Advising clients on additional emergency and disaster-related policies and procedures that could be implemented with a Section 1135 waiver, which authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to waive or modify certain Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and HIPAA requirements
By designing a legal framework that supports our clients’ business agendas, we focus on saying “yes” to our clients in a way that makes sense, while navigating through regulatory hurdles to achieve distinct, innovative goals.
We are valued for our problem-solving and consensus-building skills when advising providers on complex regulatory issues related to Medicare and Medicaid compliance, adherence to state and federal licensure regulations, and the impact of the Affordable Care Act. We help clients establish and maintain compliance programs, conduct internal investigations, defend and respond to government and payer audits, address antitrust matters, defend whistleblower qui tam actions, and advocate client rights in state and federal false claims investigations.
Our firm knows the court system inside and out, and delivers the requisite litigation prowess and technical skill to be formidable. Because many of our litigators served as federal prosecutors before entering private practice, we bring personal relationships and immediate credibility as we defend our clients with regulatory agencies and government prosecutors. In addition, our government services attorneys can provide access to state and federal legislators, government regulators and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrators to advance our clients’ individual positions and industry objectives.
As healthcare delivery evolves to meet the challenges of the future, we advise on an array of business alignment strategies, including formation of accountable care organizations, joint ventures, service integration models, professional service agreements, physician-hospital collaborative projects and managed care organizations. Our practice is at the heart of the evolution of payment systems and how providers work together to create new models for care, such as micro-hospitals. Our agile, patient-centered, provider-based stance allows us to remain at the forefront of continuous evolution involving payment systems and federal government requirements within the Medicare and Medicaid systems.
Our clients include hospitals, health systems, physicians and other licensed professionals, clinics and specialty groups, joint ventures among healthcare providers, and federally qualified health centers, as well as retail healthcare clinics, pharmacies, laboratories, ambulatory surgical centers and long term care facilities. We also represent drug and device manufacturers, wholesale drug distributors, durable medical equipment suppliers and Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans (CO-OP). Notably, we are one of only a few law firm members of The Advisory Board Company, a leading provider of comprehensive performance improvement services to the healthcare and education sectors.
The Advisory Board Company
Barnes & Thornburg is an active member of The Advisory Board Company. The Advisory Board Company is the leading provider of comprehensive performance improvement services to the health care and education sectors - including operational best practices and insights, business intelligence and analytic tools, management training, unbiased technology evaluation, and consulting support.
Practice Leaders
